Category: Resources

Write a Novel This Month! For ALL Ages

It’s November 1st already! Where did the year go? The good news is, with November comes National Novel Writing Month – it’s NaNoWriMo time again! My husband and my daughter (13 years old now) will each be working on a novel this month. Me, I’m a nonfiction writer, so I’ll be continuing to work on a series of books about Geek Schooling.

What is NaNoWriMo?

In case you’ve never heard of it, National Novel Writing Month happens every year in November. The challenge is to write a novel this month – yes an entire novel in only 30 days. Start November 1st and finish by midnight on November 30th. Adults must write a full 50,000 words, but the Young Writers Program allows writers who are 17 years old and younger to set reasonable, yet challenging, word-count goals.

People of all ages are participating in NanoWriMo all around the world! The best part is, everyone wins. Meet your word count and get a certificate of participation at the end of the 30 days.

If your child is 13 or older, they can opt to sign up on the main site at www.nanowrimo.org. Just remember that they will have to meet the goal of 50,000 words since the adult site doesn’t allow you to set your own word-count goal.

You and your child can have fun and encourage each other by writing a novel alongside each other all month long. There are many free tools available on the sites to help you write your novel, that homeschoolers will especially enjoy. If your child is under 13, send them to the How NaNoWriMo Works for Young Writers page! If you are an educator, visit the How NaNoWriMo Works for Educators page. Happy writing everyone!

Who will write a novel this month and take the NaNoWriMo challenge in your family? Please let me know in the comments below!

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One of the questions I get asked about homeschooling is, “Where can I get Canadian homeschool curricula?” Well, here is a whole bunch in one convenient Canadian homeschool resource sale!

Canadian Homeschool Resource Sale!

Canadian resources for geography, history, French, and more! Yay! You’ll find curriculum from providers such as The Canadian Homeschooler, Unlock Math, and Hip Homeschooling in the Canadian Learning Bundle. Here it all is, broken down so you can see which resources will fit you and your kids.

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Work at Home While You Homeschool:
5 Legitimate Work at Home Jobs!

You see those spammy ads about working at home all the time, I’m sure. The ones that promise work at home jobs – easy work for big money. So you wonder, are there truly companies out there that will hire you to work at home?

I am here to tell you that there are!

Are you ready?

Here are five companies that you can apply to today for work at home jobs:

These five websites are included in the book, How to Find Real Work From Home Jobs by Anna Thurman. In this book, Anna lists *145* more companies who hire remote workers. Plus tons of detailed tips on how to search for jobs, how to avoid scams, and answers to all of your burning questions. Wow!

If you’re looking for a work at home job … if you need to identify your marketable skills … if you need to learn how to fit your work in between your other responsibilities at home … if you want to be more productive … if you want to avoid scams and opportunities that are really just a waste of your time …

You will LOVE this bundle.

It even includes a training course worth $250 to help you become a Virtual Assistant (VA), which is something I do from home, myself.

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Spelling Fun in Your Homeschool

Spelling doesn’t have to be boring or tedious. Spelling can be fun! Toss those work sheets and spelling tests and give some of these resources a try for spelling fun in your homeschool. Spelling is important. Because spell check doesn’t catch everything!

SpellQuizzer

SpellQuizzer is great for any age, especially if your child loves to type and hates to print or write. Drill spelling words on the computer by recording the words (and a sample sentence or definition for your child), OR let your spouse or a special guest do the recording for even more fun. My daughter used to adore being a special guest for her big brother’s spelling words. You can also use it to drill vocabulary words, foreign language words, and more! Learn more, check out our SpellQuizzer review and get your free trial here.

The Homophone Machine

Homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently) are fun to learn about and they’re even more fun with the free online homophone machine. Your elementary age child will enjoy typing in words and phrases and see all the homophones appear. Try all the wonderful ideas and games suggested on the page for even more spelling fun.

Board Games

Board games play a big part in our everyday homeschool. Of course, Scrabble can be a great help for practising spelling. But there are many more games for spelling fun, such as Pick Two (which I adore) or Boggle. What’s your favourite?

Rummy Roots

Card games can add fun to your homeschool day, too! We’ve owned and used the Rummy Roots card game for many years. It is recommended in The Well-Trained Mind. We find it a terrific help for spelling words with Latin roots, studying Latin, and expanding vocabulary.

At first, when our kids were younger, we used it as a matching card game – simply matching Latin/Greek roots to their English definitions. Then we began playing the game properly – making compound words out of the various Latin and Greek roots, at first with two roots, and then with two or more. Recommended for ages eight to adult, I find anyone who reads well can play it.

Spelling Bees

I wish I could have participated in more spelling bees when I was a child – I only had the chance to enjoy one spelling bee in my Grade 4 classroom. My son enjoyed competing in spelling bees when he was elementary school age, although I don’t think he ever quite enjoyed spelling as much as I did.

Spelling bees aren’t as proliferous as they once were, but they are still around. Check out your nearest spelling bee and use their resources to study! If you’re in Nova Scotia, enter your child in the Halifax spelling bee. Even if your child doesn’t want to compete in a spelling bee, you can join the Scripps Spelling Bee Word Club for free spelling bee materials!

To practise, let the child who just can’t stop moving jump rope, bounce on an exercise ball, or jump on a mini trampoline for some extra fun. The spelling words will even stick in their brain better with the exercise!

Learning to Spell for Little Ones

There are many enjoyable resources available for your little ones who are learning to read and spell. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed The Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading. Spelling rules are so easy to remember when sung to the well-known tunes included in the program, “Rule Tunes.” And there are many more spelling games, including Bingo.

You may not have heard of Wordy Qwerty, as it isn’t well known, but it sure can be a fun addition for your little one. The JingleSpells spelling songs are a fantastic part of this spelling program. There are 20 incredibly well done tunes. They’re catchy and fun to sing along with, including everything from country to rock.

Are you making spelling fun in your homeschool? What resource makes it fun for you? Please let me know in the comments below!

Love, Luck &
Laughter,

Kimberly

Please note: This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and buy I make a few pennies to keep up Homeschooling in Nova Scotia. Thanks for your support!

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Getting Organized: Time to Conquer Your Clutter

Are you tired of wasting precious time shuffling papers and looking for your missing shoe, or your vanishing purse? You dream of short-cuts to make your life more organized and conquer your clutter, but is it possible?

I’ve been on a getting organized kick for the past year. I know you have the same great reasons for wanting to be more organized as I do. You want the best for your family. You want to teach your kids to live in calm, not chaos. You want to be patient without losing your mind in the insanity of so much stuff. And you simply want to sa our the time you have, instead of running around chasing clutter. But sometimes it feels too overwhelming.

Maybe you’ve tried to get more organized before, and failed. Or thought you found the perfect system, only to have it not work for you atall. You’re not alone.

I know what it’s like to feel that getting organized shouldn’t be so hard, and the answer definitely isn’t to keep wasting money on more storage containers or pricey planners, either!

What if you could learn from a group of organizing gurus all at once — regular people who’ve found practical solutions to their everyday struggles, and want to share their best tips and tactics with you in all the areas you find most challenging?

Because when you have the right info and tools at your fingertips, it’s so much easier. You know which papers to keep (and which should immediately be thrown away). You’re more confident to say no to activities on your calendar that don’t matter (and yes to those that do). You start learning the difference between what you need and what will only add to the clutter in your home. You feel less stressed (and you’ll probably enjoy life more, too).

That’s why Stephanie and her team have put together the Conquer Your Clutter Super Bundle for the very first time. Their customers have been begging for help with streamlining their lives. The answer was this super opportunity to get a complete collection of organizational resources for a crazy low price.

This package includes 38 digital products to help you declutter every aspect of your life, including how to organize your photos, family systems, meal planning, time management, and much more. Altogether, it’s worth over $650!

Plus, it comes with two brilliant bonus offers worth over $40:

SaneBox – To help you clean up your inbox in minutes and save you 12 hours per month ($20 value)

YNAB – A FREE four month trial to the popular budgeting software ($20 value)

Besides being so incredibly helpful and inspiring, one of the things I like best about this bundle is the price. By offering the bundle for a short time only, they’re able to give you access to over $650 worth of amazing products for a whopping 95% off!

Here’s how it works:

Visit the website, take a quick look at all the goodness that comes in this Super Bundle, then click “Get my copy now!” to go through their simple 3-step checkout process.

You’ll receive an email with a login to the online access portal, where you’ll begin downloading your eBooks, signing up for your eCourses, printing out planners, and redeeming your free bonus products.

Use the Getting Started Guide so you don’t get overwhelmed and can pick which area you want to tackle first and start getting organized!

The most important detail, is that this bundle is available for only 6 days! After Monday night, January 30th, the sale ends and all of these wonderful resource will have to be bought individually.

I’d hate for you to miss out, so click HERE to learn more or to buy the bundle.

It’s even backed by a full money-back happiness guarantee, so you can know for sure that it’s right for you. And it’s all digital, so no pricey shipping costs!

No one should have to feel overwhelmed because it costs too much or they can’t get the help they need. By finding systems and strategies that work for us as moms and homeschoolers, our homes and daily lives can be much calmer than in the past. Getting organized is making all the difference in the world and I want the same for you and your family. Now is the perfect time – when the weather is frightful and you’re cooped up inside!

Love, Luck &
Laughter,

Kimberly

This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and buy I make a few pennies to keep up Homeschooling in Nova Scotia. Thanks for your support!

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Are you struggling through the winter doldrums? Do you need to mix things up with some fun activities and curricula for your kids? Check out these homeschool resources under $30.

Here’s a list of the best affordable homeschool resources – all available for $30 or less on Educents.

Helpful Resources

Homeschool Music Journeys – Twelve activities and eight colouring pages introduce kids to a world of music-related fun, from Australian clapsticks to Indian ankle bells and Egyptian rattles. These projects fit perfectly into any homeschool curriculum where music is a part of the learning and discovery!

Photography Lessons for Kids – Add some fun to your homeschool! Whether your kids have a point and shoot or a DSLR camera, the fundamental rules of photography can still be taught.

Math ResourcesTimes Tales DVD – Kids can learn their times tables in a snap! We have used the paper version of Times Tales and it really works! Most homeschoolers say the DVD only takes about an hour to teach kids the upper times tables. There’s also a downloadable version available.

Life of Fred Math Stories – After reading the Fred books, kids will never say “math is boring” ever again. My daughter was getting into a slump and needed to take a break from our regular math curriculum. These books are really helping her understand the concepts. Fictional stories weave in math concepts with real world examples. Start with the Apples book for early math, and follow Fred all the way to calculus lessons!

Science Activities

Early Access Tyto Online – Learn, create, and play with your student. These polymers can help teach measurements, chemical reactions, and following directions.

One Minute Science Mysteries – Each story, just one minute long, challenges students’ knowledge in earth, space, life, physical, chemical, and general science.

As long as you use one gift certificate, you’ll come out even. Use two and you have a great deal, worth twice what you paid!

The more you use, the more you save, all the way up to $165 free for shopping, so you can spend less while gifting well this Christmas.

No time to shop, even online? No problem! Print out and give twelve gifts of fantastic gift certificates to your friends and family. For only $15 US you have twelve gifts!

The catch? Sale ends Monday, December 5th at midnight. Get your twelve gifts to give now!

Learn more or get your bundle here.

P.S. Fellow Canadians – almost everything ships worldwide! Only one of the gift certificate participants ships US only, so ignore that one and use the rest, or send it to a friend or family member in the US.

Love, Luck &
Laughter,

Kimberly

Please note: This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and buy, I make a few pennies to keep up Homeschooling in Nova Scotia. Thanks for your support!

Homeschool Curriculum Choices in Nova Scotia

Parents interested in homeschooling always ask me where they can get homeschool books, often assuming they are issued by the Department of Education. The good news is, we have endless homeschool curriculum choices in Nova Scotia.

Since the Department of Education does not specify what course of study we have to follow, homeschoolers can decide for ourselves. Under the Regulations of the Education Act, Section 39 (Home Education) refers to “a parent providing a home education” and states:

A registration form required by subsection (1) shall include,

(a) in the case of previous public school experience, the last grade level attained;

(b) in the case of previous home education experience, the program level of achievement and estimated equivalent public school grade level; and

(c) identification of the proposed home education program.

Therefore, homeschooling parents in the province of Nova Scotia are free to determine what our “education program” looks like, and are simply required to provide this information to the Department of Education.

Some of the more popular homeschooling approaches and a few of the many curriculum options …

Charlotte Mason

Unschooling

Unschooling involves child-led learning. The child decides what they want to learn about.
Curriculum example: Does not follow a curriculum, but reading Learning at Home by Marty Layne and the works of John Holt will give an idea what it’s about.

Montessori

Montessori is a private school system, based on the works of Maria Montessori, with an emphasis on wooden tools and toys, and organization and order.
Curriculum examples: Lisa Nolan Montessori, Montessori Homeschool

Waldorf

Waldorf is also a private school system, based on the works of Rudolf Steiner, with an emphasis on arts and hand-crafts, music, natural materials, and nature.
Curriculum example: Oak Meadow

Eclectic

Many homeschoolers put together their own curriculum from a wide variety of curriculum choices, using a separate curriculum for each subject.

Where to Buy

There is one homeschool curriculum store in Atlantic Canada where homeschool materials and curricula are available, Tree of Life, located in New Brunswick. A used homeschool curriculum store is also located in Berwick, Nova Scotia, Homegrown Homeschool Consignment. Many homeschoolers depend on their local library for wonderful books for their children, both fiction and non-fiction.

Online Public School Classes

Also, here in Nova Scotia, we can choose to have our Grade 7-12 students take Correspondence Study Program courses for some subjects. Although a full course load is not available, our children can take a few classes each year such as English, math, and science. These online courses are expensive, however, and tend to be full of the busywork typical of public school programs.

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It is always surprising to me how many people claim they are bad at math or hate math when it is a necessary part of daily life. People don’t seem to realize they use it all the time to figure out the tax or exchange on a purchase, to figure out the best deal at the grocery store, to figure out how much yarn to purchase for a pattern, and so much more! Math can be quite the four letter word, but your child can come to enjoy the subject with the right curriculum.

4 Math Curricula Homeschoolers Love

If you’re looking for a comprehensive homeschool math curriculum catered to your child’s learning style, you’ll love these 4 math curricula homeschoolers love, for beginners through college, and from the mastery method to story-based. Check them out!

Grades 1-7

Math Mammoth is a comprehensive math program that is ideal for homeschool families with multiple children. It’s the most pedagogically sound math program we’ve ever used in our homeschool. It includes placement assessments and lessons that cater to your child’s learning preferences. Choose between computer-based work or printable chapters and worksheets.

Kindergarten/Primary to College

If the drill and kill approach is not helping your child fully grasp math concepts, try a new method. If your kids prefer reading books to completing math worksheets, check out Life of Fred math books. These supplement books weave math lessons into funny, fictional stories kids enjoy reading.
These books contain more than silly stories – every chapter includes a “Your Turn to Play” section where kids apply the real world math concepts Fred (the main character) has learned. One of the most-sought after curricula.

Grades 3 to 6

Add some light-hearted fun to math time! Enjoy these affordable, silly, convenient printables with your child. Review math concepts while giggling over the math riddles included in Math Galaxy’s worksheets. Choose from more than 300 pages of printable down loads that add a little fun to lessons.
Topics include time, money, multiplication, division, and more.

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Birthday Gift Guide for Ages 3 to 13

If you’re a parent or relative of children age 3 to 13, then you have birthdays to attend. It can be almost every weekend sometimes! Finding the appropriate gift can be time-consuming and a bit stressful – whether it’s coming directly from you or from your child.

Never fear! Here is a gift guide to help you focus on enjoying time with loved ones (and getting on with your day!) rather than hemming and hawing over all the options. While summer birthdays have been top of my mind (especially my daughter’s half birthday party celebration), the gift guide is appropriate for any time of year. Feel free to bookmark this page as a gift that keeps on giving to you.

Gifts are organized by age group from preschooler to teen, and all of them are under $40 US! Happy gifting!

For giftees ages 3 to 5

Geometric Building Set Tegu Blocks combine fun colours, geometric shapes, and a magnetic snap to create a playtime experience that’s fitting for the living room or the classroom. Parents (and littles) love this toy because it is environmentally friendly and can be social.

Make a Match Game
This game helps children grow memory skills with adorable dinosaur chips! The beautiful design is a treat for parents and kids alike. Perfect for picnics, play dates, and rainy games, the Make a Match game is small enough to carry in your pocket and hip enough for the coolest of preschool birthday parties.

For giftees ages 6 to 8

Animal Charades Game
Get kids on their feet and brimming with ideas! This high-quality wooden game is a perfect gift for outgoing children, to create an atmosphere of fun and creativity.

Pirate Adventure Board Game
Kids will have so much fun playing Rainbow Math that they won’t even realize they are learning math from an award-winning program.

The Slimy Squishy Polymer Bucket is the perfect gift for budding scientists who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty in the name of … scientific learning! Let them have fun while learning the basics of chemistry.

Garden Flowers Coloring Book
Colouring books make great gifts. These garden flower coloring books are perfect for child and parent to enjoy.

For giftees 9 to 10

Food Fighter 2-Player Game
Food Fighter is a board game for two children to face off in a kitchen-themed battle. Children will have fun while developing higher-order thinking skills, mathematics, literacy, and executive functioning skills.

Dream Catcher Kit
Building dreamcatchers is a classic crafting activity – this colourful kit has everything kids need to make something unique and beautiful!

Just Add Milk Experiments
Parents love these experiments because little parental oversight is required and they’re so easy to do right at home! Girls and boys, readers and scientists alike will love this colourful kit.

Gifts for Ages 11 to 13

Pairs in Pears
Whether or not they love this pun as much as some of us do, this game gets kids flexing vocabulary muscles while having fun with a little challenge and competition. A Bit like Scrabble, players build pairs of connecting words in matching patterns. Best of all it’s portable – a perfect gift and activity to bring along on sleepovers or for parties. For a little more “pearity,” pair with two more pears!

Rainforest Biome
Budding scientists and tweens who like hands-on fun will love this all-in-one Rainforest Biome – they get to start a whole ecosystem! The biome includes cacao beans (a favourite), clay, an apple snail shell, and more to create a full-on biofeedback loop. Cool!

Math & Science Mystery Books
Who doesn’t love to solve a mystery?! The One Minute Mystery series takes a simple concept and turns it into an awesome book. Kids will read mysteries, then use their powers of deduction and knowledge of math and science to find the solution. Each is as satisfying as the next!

Enjoy shopping for your birthday boy or girl!

Love, Luck &
Laughter,

Kimberly

This article contains affiliate links. If you click through and buy I make a few pennies to keep up Homeschooling in Nova Scotia. Thanks for your support!